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Definition: XML vocabulary

XML Vocabularies
In 2003, Robin Cover, Managing Editor of "The Cover Pages," a website devoted to XML and SGML references and articles, compiled the following list of XML vocabularies. For more information, visit http://xml.coverpages.org.

The following list of more than 200 XML vocabularies shows the extent to which vendors and industry consortia embraced XML within five years of its introduction in 1998.

This was probably the most comprehensive list of XML vocabularies ever compiled when completed in 2003; however, it was not reproduced here to serve as the most up-to-date reference on the subject. It was intended to show you that, while XML has been touted as one of the most extraordinary standards in the information industry, it is only a format that takes on endless permutations. People all over the world had to agree upon the vocabularies they plan on using with each other to exchange information. The success of a vocabulary will be determined by the relevance and appropriate degree of granularity that has been defined for each transaction and process. The human world is flexible. The electronic world is not. In an electronic exchange of information, the software cannot ask "what did you really mean by that?"